Bluesky Social, a rising social media platform, gains momentum as X’s users begin depleting after the changes Elon Musk has made to the app since he purchased it in 2022.
X, previously known as Twitter, was bought by Elon Musk in 2022. Since then, the app has come across significant changes that Musk has implemented. Some changes include the app using any information you provide to train its artificial intelligence models, allowing people you have blocked to see your profile, hiding users likes, changed algorithms, and eliminating rules banning hate speech and disinformation. The app promotes itself for supplying current news and viral content.
In the wake of the 2024 election results, with Donald Trump as the victor, some X users have felt the need to try an alternative. Bluesky Social is marketed as a decentralized version of twitter. The app, originally created by X’s former CEO, shares the same layout, and features that Twitter used to have, without all the changes made by Musk. Since the election, the platform has gained millions of new users at a rapid rate. It even topped the charts in the app store as the number one social media platform. Some people are skeptical that Bluesky Social will serve any purpose being so closely programmed to Twitter while its fans endorse the positivity and sense of community the app brings compared to X.
“A big difference I noticed was that Bluesky is more peaceful and respectful than X,” senior Amari Chestner said. “Bluesky is definitely making a bigger and more positive impact in the social media community than X is.”
While some people love and praise the app, others are not convinced that it will outperform X. Users are not familiar with it and are skeptical as to whether Bluesky will impact where people stand with social media platforms at all.
“I have never heard of Bluesky before,” sophomore Melanie Gonzalez said. “X is one of the biggest social media platforms, so I think it would take a lot to get everyone switched over to Bluesky.”
Other X users are in a more neutral position on their stance on X and Bluesky as they are frustrated with Musk’s new polices, yet do not see Bluesky in their futures.
“Elon Musk changed a lot of content and verification,” junior Kim Garcia said. “There are more ads, you can’t see what people like anymore, and Elon Musk’s posts are the first thing I see when I open the app now. But, as interesting as Bluesky sounds, I don’t think I’ll download it because not enough people have it.
New social media platforms arise and fall as quickly as they rose for many different reasons. As the social media outlook changes daily, the question is: Will Bluesky dethrone X and become a royalty of social media, or will X defend its platform by continuing with the classic approach to hook its users in? Only time will tell which social media platform is the better pick in this ongoing debate.
